The girls were stunned. The Reeds were the ones who were lying! Why, you only had to look up their name in the town directory through all the years Catherine was employed there to find Mr Reed’s name next to that of Radium Dial; the company and the man were synonymous. How could he claim he was not working there? And as for swearing that nobody told the girls radium wouldn’t hurt them – unfortunately for the company, a full-page advert signed by its president and printed in several editions of the local newspaper asserted exactly that.
In response to the Reeds’ sworn statements, all the women present that day declared they would testify to the direct opposite. During the hearing, Charlotte and Al Purcell both gave evidence to that effect. Tom Donohue was also on the stand, but this quiet man appears to have been overcome by the occasion; no doubt he was also handicapped by worry for his wife. He ‘stumbled in his testimony, his voice being scarcely audible, and so the commissioner ruled out [almost] all of his testimony’.
The so-called evidence of the Reeds was the sole item submitted by the company in its appeal. And so, at 3.30 p.m., the hearing was closed. A five-man committee would judge the final verdict; they promised a decision by 10 July.
Catherine just needed to hang on a little bit longer.
56
In America, religion is king – and in 1938 there was an heir apparent: Father Keane of Chicago. He ran the Sorrowful Mother Novena, a weekly church service attended by more than 200,000 people countrywide, to which worshippers submitted personal requests for aid. Keane prayed publicly for them – in church, on the radio and in a weekly booklet, which was published nationwide so that Catholics across the States could pray for those in need. The novena was a cultural phenomenon.
Catherine didn’t have the energy to read anymore, depending instead on Tom, so she probably didn’t read those published prayers – but Pearl Payne’s sister-in-law did. ‘I would suggest all of your girls write to Father Keane,’ she encouraged, ‘I am sure all of you will benefit greatly and MIRACLES do happen even in this day and age, Pearl, so don’t give up hope.’
Catherine had nothing to lose. During every moment she spent with Mary Jane and Tommy, she felt like her heart was breaking. She needed more time . . . she needed so much more time with them. And so, at the direction of her dear friend Pearl, on 22 June 1938, Catherine summoned all her courage and her faith, and she wrote from the bottom of her heart.
Dear Father Keane,
The doctors tell me I will die, but I mustn’t. I have too much to live for – a husband who loves me and two children I adore. But, the doctors say, radium poisoning is eating away my bones and shrinking my flesh to the point where medical science has given me up as ‘one of the living dead’.
They say there is nothing that can save me – nothing but a miracle. And that’s what I want – a miracle . . . But if that is not God’s will, perhaps your prayers will obtain for me the blessing of a happy death.
Please,
Mrs Catherine Wolfe Donohue
That ‘Please’ said it all. Catherine was begging for help. She had no shame or pride now – she just wanted to survive. Just one month longer. Just one more week. One more day.
Such was her fame as the leader of her Living Dead Society, her letter made front-page news. The reaction to her note was extraordinary, even by the standards of the popular novena. There was ‘a sweeping response the length and breadth of the land’. Prayers were said daily for Catherine throughout the nation; hundreds of thousands of people queued in the rain to pray for her. Catherine herself received almost 2,000 letters. ‘I would like to answer them all,’ she said, quite overwhelmed, ‘but of course I can’t.’
And even though one has to take the news reports with a pinch of salt, it worked. By the following Sunday, Catherine was sitting up and eating her first meal with her family in months.
‘Doctors told me today,’ Leonard Grossman announced on 3 July, ‘they don’t know what is keeping her alive. It is fortunate indeed that Catherine finds comfort in prayer. It is fortunate that she is a Christian and may forgive – she can never forget.’
Catherine counted each day as it passed; 10 July was not so very far away. She was living for her children, for Tom – but also for justice. She simply prayed it would be done.
And on 6 July 1938 – four days early – her prayers were answered. On this date, the appeal of the Radium Dial Company was thrown out of court by the IIC. They upheld Catherine’s award; and not only that, they added an additional $730 ($12,271) to it, to cover the medical expenses she had incurred since April. It was a unanimous decision from all five members of the adjudicating panel. ‘It was,’ Catherine wrote with exultant pleasure, ‘a wonderful victory.’
‘I’m so happy for Catherine,’ Pearl wrote excitedly to Grossman after she heard the good news. ‘I sincerely hope she benefits at once, so she may enjoy some medical comforts and things she actually wishes for.’
Yet the one thing Catherine truly wished for – the return of her health – seemed, despite all her prayers, to be out of her reach. In the middle of July, she had a ‘bad spell’ and had to have the doctor, but Catherine Donohue was not done fighting yet. When Olive stopped in to see her a day later, she found Tom asleep from his night shift but Catherine sitting up eating her lunch wearing the pretty nightgown Pearl had given her. ‘She did look nice in it,’ commented Olive fondly. ‘Poor child, my heart goes out to her.’
Catherine was doing so well that on 17 July the women decided to have a reunion to celebrate their success; they had a ‘lovely time’ talking about their incredible victory. The other girls were full of plans for their own cases. Thanks to Catherine’s triumph in court, they too could now bring claims before the IIC; Grossman said he would begin litigating Charlotte’s case immediately. The others were having medical examinations in Chicago to support their claims; Pearl began consulting Dr Dalitsch. ‘Personally,’ she wrote to him, ‘I think it was an act of God that sent you to Ottawa in Catherine Donohue’s case.’
Pearl felt an unfamiliar sensation these days; she realised with some surprise it was a pleasant anticipation for the future. ‘I live,’ she said simply, ‘in the hope of living.’
Catherine did the same. Yet it was not a smooth life. On Friday 22 July, Tom was so worried about her that he called out Father Griffin to administer last rites. Catherine, lying weakly in bed, ‘wistfully’ asked her husband, ‘Is it that bad?’
Though Tom was unable to answer, in fact, it wasn’t that bad. Catherine lived on and on, day after day, the verdict in court seeming to buoy her. It gave her another hour, another dawn; one more day in which she could greet Tom in the morning, kiss Mary Jane goodnight, see Tommy draw just one more picture with his watercolour paints. Catherine kept on living.